Should You Go to the Trouble of Installing a Surround-Sound System?

Even today, most homes don’t have full surround sound, and those lucky people who do tend to brag about it to no end. But is it worth your time, money and effort to install surround sound in your home and enjoy the fruits of what could be hours of labour?

A problem many people have when considering whether or not to install surround sound is the fact that they don’t want wires everywhere, connecting the speakers to the main unit. Wireless units may be available, but honestly you don’t want to risk your sound quality to that extent; wireless technology simply isn’t as reliable as wired technology and there is no point in spending the money on something that has a reasonably high likelihood of going wrong on a regular basis; if your surround sound is contingent on your fiddling with positioning and settings, you’re not going to find yourself relaxing into the surround-sound environment created by your favourite films.

If you are redoing the room your TV is in, then you can often hide the wires quite easily. Carpet layers will happily work with you to lay the carpet in such a way as to make them invisible; if they must be above ground, you can work to fiddle them in behind architrave and along skirting boards. Taking extra time with this will make your room look a lot better – don’t be tempted to scrimp.

Surround sound can make certain films a lot more fun to watch. A surround sound horror film, where the mounting anticipation of violence or fright ratchets up your nerves, hearing a sound behind you instead of hearing it come from the television can scare you witless and for some people this makes the experience far more enjoyable. But whether or not this is worth the amount of money required, and the time you’ll need in order to properly install the system, is entirely up to you. It depends highly on your personal tastes, after all!

Surround sound can make a difference to how you watch the films you enjoy. But whether or not it is worth the time and expenditure required depends entirely on whether or not you’ll enjoy it on a regular basis depends on your viewing habits. Perhaps you can try watching a film at a friend’s to test whether or not the surround sound makes a big difference to your enjoyment, to help you make up your mind!